


the hero's journey

by Naraht



Series: trials of Coach Yakov [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, Mentor-Student Relationship, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 00:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9409151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: Yakov attempts to prepare Yuri for his transition to Seniors. Yuri doesn't care to listen.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gramarye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gramarye/gifts).



> This is a somewhat expanded flashfic written for Gramarye for More Joy Day 2017. The prompt was "a tired Yurio falls asleep on Yakov, and Yakov lets him sleep even though he's lost most of the feeling in his arm or something." (Because apparently Yakov always has students [falling asleep on top of him](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9332321).) You can read the original fic [here](http://naraht.dreamwidth.org/635647.html?thread=6901503#cmt6901503).
> 
> This fic is set in the March of Yuri's final season as a Junior, just after the World Championships. Just before Victor departs for Japan.
> 
> VDNKh is Moscow's surreal Stalinist public park, almost like a Soviet-era Disneyland. It has the [world's largest artificial ice rink](http://calvertjournal.com/articles/show/3568/vdnkh-moscow-stalinist-renovation-urbanism-public-space).

End of the season. 

Yakov made a point of sitting down with each one of his skaters in turn to go over their performance, their competitors, their goals for the following year. Mila had offered a clear-eyed commentary on most of her errors before he had the chance; Georgi had wept and pledged to do better next year; Victor (what had got into the man recently?) had accepted all of his corrections with the same bored, slightly strained grace that he usually reserved for sponsors and press conferences.

Yuri Plisetsky he saved until last. There was no excuse for it: with the boy now permanently installed in his spare room, the opportunity was no further than the living room couch. But he was not looking forward to it, and he suspected that Yuri wasn't either.

Getting Yuri off of his computer, away from his headphone and phone, and out of his room was challenge enough. As an end-of-season treat, Yakov had even made popcorn for the occasion. Did he earn any goodwill from this? Of course not. The talented child he'd spotted on the ice at VDNKh nearly a decade ago had turned into a surly teenager, right on schedule.

Yuri sat stonily on the couch and watched the recordings of his programs with his usual scowl, only deigning to uncross his folded arms in order to stuff handfuls of popcorn into his mouth. Every piece of feedback that Yakov offered got the same response. 

_You performed that terribly - I know, Yakov_

_You did that well, but you could do it better - I know, I know, Yakov_

It was the same refrain all the way up to Yuri's gold medal performances at the Junior Grand Prix Final and Junior Worlds. Yuri just yawned through them, as if nothing in his life had been so foregone a conclusion. In retrospect it was true – as far as anything in figure skating could be certain – but it was a fatal attitude to take into Seniors.

Instilling fear was the only answer. There was no point showing Yuri the programs of his competitors in Juniors, for they were his competitors no longer. Instead Yakov had collected the best from the men whom he would face next season: Cao, Giacometti, Leroy. And, naturally, Nikiforov.

"A decade more experience than you," said Yakov, shaking his finger at the screen. "Don't make me regret putting you into seniors next year. You still have no idea what you're up against."

"I'm not afraid of _Victor_ ," said Yuri, yawning again, deeply. "And I see him skate all the time. Show me someone else."

"If success doesn't motivate you, how about failure?" Yakov thought for a moment, then queued up another program on the television. "Here's Yuri Katsuki at Japanese nationals. Watch carefully."

Paradoxically this seemed to draw Yuri's interest where the victories had not. He watched in silence, the bowl of popcorn forgotten at his side, breathing quietly through his mouth. It demonstrated more fortitude than Yakov could muster; even though Katsuki was not his own athlete, he had to force himself not to drop his eyes in sympathetic embarrassment.

"That was probably the worst disaster of his senior career," said Yakov when the agony was over. "And his step sequences were still better than yours."

"I know," said Yuri, for the forty-third time that evening. Nonetheless something seemed to have sunk in.

After that they watched the last World Championships from start to finish. It had grown late; the popcorn was finished. Yakov began to give his commentary in a lower voice, a monologue grown raspy from his earlier exhortations. It would never have done for Eurosport or Match TV, but they had never given him the invitation. Really it was more like reading a bedtime story to the boy leaning warm against his side. _These monsters you, the hero, will need to slay before you can become a man..._

By the time they came to the final program in Worlds, Victor's free skate, it was past eleven o'clock. On screen, Victor, readying himself to skate, looked suddenly old. Perhaps it was the television lights at the edge of the rink, showing up the beginnings of lines at the corners of his eyes, the slight unevenness of the skin beneath the makeup. Yakov, the Yakov of a week ago, was laying his hand on Victor's shoulder, offering some last-minute advice. Victor bent to remove the guards from his skates. The expression on his face was something caught between a smile, a wince, and the weariness of a man who has long been carrying a great weight.

Beside him, the silence had grown suspiciously long. Yakov paused the television and turned to look at Yuri. Blond hair spilled across his own shoulder. Head nodding, Yuri Plisetsky had fallen asleep.

On screen, the monster was frozen, captured as he stood poised to claim his triumph. All the image lacked was the staticky, wavering bars of a VCR on pause, balanced precariously between one frame and the next, the past and the future.

 _Let him wait,_ thought Yakov. _It may be the last victory he has._

And he let his exhausted skater, the next great hero of Russia, sleep on.


End file.
